Lowrie in Siberia

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, otherwise known as North Korea is a unique place to visit. You'll notice there are no photos of the DPRK soldiers or the Pyongyang Acrobatics performers. We were quite simply not allowed to take photos of them and other certain things. I'm sure I could have stolen a few photos here and there but they do spot checks of peoples cameras on the way out and you can be heavily fined if the soldiers find anything there shouldn't be.

 

We left Seoul at midnight on Friday and travelled by bus for 6 hours across to the east coast of ROK, crossing the boarder about 7:30am on saturday morning. I managed to get about 20 minutes sleep on the bus so was very tired when we got to the boarder.

 

Before I had left NZ, Aaron had sorted out the trip for the both of us, all I needed to do was send him a scanned copy of my passport and a recent photo. I found out they also needed an adress and occupation and Aaron had put me down as an ESL English Institute Lecturer. So I had to answer questions accordingly with the North Korean soldier who was conducting customs. But I got through alright, he even smiled at some people. Aaron went through before me and the soldier asked him where NZ was because he thought it was next to Wales in Europe!

 

We got to the boarder and there was a Korean song playing on the loudspeaker, it was repeating over and over again, DPRK propoganda radio.

 

Anyway, all the DPRK soldiers looked very staunch and intimidating and they were stationed on either side of the road every few kilometers until we got to the Mt. Kumgang resort. On the way there we saw some civilians who were riding bikes or ploughing fields with ox and cart. There are no trees on the hills once you cross the boarder as the North Koreans have made some unwise decisions on how to maintain their natural resources, using all the trees for timber and obviously not replanting.

 

When we got to the Mt. Kumgang resort there were no soldiers, so we could take photos. We quickly dropped our bags in the Hotel Oekumgang lobby and straight back onto the bus for our first mountain hike to Kuryongyon up Mt Kumgangsan in the Diamond Mountains. The views were truely breathtaking, jagged rocks on bare cliff faces and glaciers embeded in deep valleys below. The temperature was cold but not as cold as it had been in Seoul the week before. So it was a pleasant tramp up the slopes. Aaron was on another bus so I got to know some of the others on the tour, walking up with a group of mostly Canadians, some Americans and a few Brits. This is the only North Korean tour Americans are able to go on given the nature of there political relationship with DPRK. I think it would be even more spectacular to visit Pyongyang one day.

 

Once we got to the top it was very very steep, with metal staircases to traverse the high slopes. Very dangerous conditions in the strong icy breeze too! THe peak we climbed was not that high, about 900 meters. But it still took over 2  and a half hours to get to the top and about an hour and a half to get down.

 

We had lunch when we got back then 3 of us went to check into the hotel and head a 40 minute power nap before heading to the Cultural Centre to watch the amazing world class Pyongyang Moranbong Acrobatic Troupe. This would have to be the best $US30 I have ever spent in my life, it was a fantastic show both in the professionalism and skill the performers had and the presentation. The costumes were amazing! I could feel the adreneline rush through me as they performed knowing I was seeing something pretty special. These performers spend there whole lives preparing for a show. Its all they know and they probablyhave a 'good life' compared to many other North Korean citizens. They had the most amazing jugglers and trapeze artists. There was a women who balanced a pole on her chin and on top of the pole was a plate of vases with water and she was swinging on the trapeze high above the stage and kept perfect balance not spilling a drop. Incredible!

 

After the show we had dinner then I decided to do a bit of shopping so went to the souvenir shop. Of all the places I visit I wanted to get myslf a souvenir from North Korea. I got a stamp collection, a booklet containing stamps of Mt. Kumgang, with peaks and wildlife. I also got a coin of the region and a bottle of DPRK Ginseng made in Pyongyang, which I will probably drink on the Trans Siberian next week.

 

Later on that night we went back to the hotel and a group of us had some drinks in my room. Then we decided to go to the Kareoke bar and rent a room. There were 7 of us and we found that the machines had western songs so sang all night and had a lot of fun. Around 2:30am most of the others went back to the hotel and I was left with one of the Canadian lads and we decided to go knocking on the doors of the the other rooms and we stumbled across some Korean business men, very drunk finishing up their Kareoke. They asked us to come in and join them so we had a chat with them as one of them could speak quite good English, and the Canadian guy, who was a teacher had a bit of Korean, hence we could communicate. Anyway, the bar closed at 3:00am and as we were leaving the girls at the counter told me and the Canadain that our Kareoke group hadn't paid on the way out and we owed $US70. We didn't have enough to pay and because we only spoke English it was difficult to explain why we couldn't pay, so they took down the Canadians passport number and we got a bit worried. We went back to the hotel to track down the others and finally found them around 4:00am to get an explaination. Apparently, they had insisted on paying several times but were told that they didn't owe anything, so left thinking eveything was fine. We collected the money and it worked out the next day by paying the military at the boarder. No fines were issued either which was a relief!

 

As it turns out our tour was the most well behaved of all the tours before. No one got any fines. On a previous tour, someone had grabbed the fire extinguisher and set the hotel alarms off at 4:00am evacuating the entire hotel. They only recieved a $US300 fine!

 

On Sunday, we got up at 7:30am after about 3 hours sleep. Surprisingly, and thankfully I was not hung over as we were to embark on a 4 hour mountain trek through Manmulsang on Mt. Kumgang. This was a much easier climb than on Saturday and the views were even more spectacular. This was the highlight of the whole North Korean trip. There were glaciers everywhere and lots of ice hard snow on foot, some very slippery parts all the way up. We were lucky enough to see a massive ice sheet give way on the other side of the vally as we got to the top of the climb. That was an extraordinary sight!

 

After the walk, we went to the hot spring spa, where I spent most of the time in the mineral salt sauna to try an sweat out the alcohol from Saturday night. It was very relaxing. The hot pools outside were a real treat as it was about zero degrees and sitting in a 40 degree hotpool in such cold conditions is fantastic!

 

Aaron was quite unwell as he had stayed up until 6:30am drinking whiskey with the Brits and Canadians, so was extremely hungover and was struggling up the hill climb.

 

We then got on the bus and headed back to the boarder. Passing though the North Korean boarder was excting and scary as gunshots were firedand we could see some soldiers running inthe distance. I just put my head down and went straight for the bus. At the South Korean Customs control on the way back through, one of the British guys visa had expired causing us to have to wait around for an hour of so to come to a decision on how he would be able to re-enter. I assume they gave him a tourist visa although he had already been teaching in Seoul for 18 months so had been in the country too long to be eligible for a tourist visa. 

 

THis trip was the experience of a lifetime and would recommend this opportunity to anyone who has any interest whatsoever about travelling there. It is an experience I will never forget and was very different to what I imagined it would be like. I did not see one statue of Kim Ill Sung or Kim Jong Ill while in DPRK and there was not as much of tight security and watchful eye of the tour leader as I thought there would be. Best to check when these tours are being run as they only run 3 times per year, in March, May and December. and there were only 92 spaces on my tour for foriegners, although there were a couple of thousand ROK people on other tours there at the same time.

 

I'm off to Beijing tomorrow morning to start my Trans Siberian trip so I had better get to bed now as it is midnight and I have to get up at 5:00am to get to Incheon on time.

 

Thought It was about time to write about my time in Seoul so far, I'll save North Korea for another entry!

 

Me and Aaron went to visit the War Memorial Museum on Monday but found that it was closed! It didn't really matter as we still had a great time outside, which is where most of the interesting stuff is. There were plenty of tanks, rocket launchers, jet fighters, even a few Scud-B missiles which were atleast 10 meters high! Hopefully I can figure out how to place photos on here so you can check them out.

 

As many people have told me already, I brought the cold weather with me. Which is ironic seeing as it was 32 degrees when I left Christchurch. It was snowing for 4 days in my first week here, and Monday night after visiting the War museum me and Vercs decided to get off the subway at the Han river bridge to get a good view of the City. This was really fun but I can tell you that without a doubt these were the coldest conditions I have ever experienced. It wasn't just snowing, there was also a gail force wind that had a wind chill factor of about minus 15 to 20 degrees. We were both wearing gloves and a hat which covered my ears but my face was numb from the pain afterwards. We got some good photos and the puddles of water on the bridge had to be delicately manouvered to avoid slipping as they were frozen solid.

 

On Thursday me and Aaron went into Seoul and visited Seoul Tower, we decided to walk up the hill as opposed to getting the gondola. I needed the exercise after little opportunity since leaving NZ. Up the tower there were breathtaking panoramic views of the city (second largest metropolitan area in the world - 23 million people) and the most amazing urinals I have ever seen. There were 3 urinals each overlooking the city with large glass windows, so you could use the facilities while looking out over the city. on each window there were world cities with distances from Seoul, so I found the Auckland and Wellington window - unfortunately no Christchurch, but I now know I'm 10,000km from home!

 

After the Tower me and Vercs spent the next 8 hours (until 11pm visiting the famous Namdaemun and Dongdaemun markets. These collosal markets were amazing and had such variety. There was a whole street dedicated to hats! There were unbelievable numbers of stalls selling fake American branded clothing and just as many selling squid, deep fried pig head and freshly stewed silk worms!

 

Friday we visited the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is te biggest in Seoul and housed the royal family when they moved here in the 14th century. Although it was destroyed by the Japanese during their rule it is now being restored by the World Heritage Fountation. Its a huge area and amazing to walk around and see the temples and surrounding moats.